In Memory of My Port

My cute little port was installed January 13th 2010 and now is out on March 8th, 2011.   I have had it over a year. 

It was a sad moment but this morning between 9:30 and 9:45 my port was removed from my upper right chest/shoulder.  I got a look at it as it was a little gummy, covered in ooze and damp looking.  It actually looked a little bug-eyed (it's a double port).   A purple little bug eyed monster.

Mary, my fearless driver, compatriot and wife, and I arrived at the hospital at 7:12 and ambled our way up to the escalators and the first check in station.   I was number 12 on the list and was given a little blue laminated piece of paper with that number on it. 

After a thorough processing, and a long wait, we were headed to Vascular and Interventional Radiology where we were checked in again (although without the paperwork) and redirected to the waiting room. Where we waited about 10 minutes before  I asked somebody at the desk labeled "Check In" if we were in the right place. She said that we were and there was a phone around the corner (behind a wall) where we could call the Catheter Lab and tell them that we were waiting.  


If dentists were real doctors they would force you to strip stark naked and wear a bib while they did tooth extractions.  This was a similar experience.  At least they gave me a blanket.   And let me keep my diaper like undies on.

There was the little room with the curtain and the instructions and I found myself propped up on a gurney being rolled down one hallway and up another.  I was thankful that someone who knew the way was pushing.

I had been lost in this hospital before; hoping I wouldn't step out the wrong door and be locked out and stuck on the opposite side of that monster from my car.


Eventually we were outside a room which looked like an operating room of sorts.  There was a long skinny table in the middle of this room that had six to eight flat panel monitors across from where the wielder of the scalpel would stand.

The nurse or tech who had pushed me was so short that she could easily step under the monitors.

But I actually never left the gurney.  That's where they did it.

She was there, then the guy who was going to clean my chest area was there and got busy and I was duly cleaned up and they put a mask on me to keep my dirty breath from contaminating the area that was going to be open soon and ready to receive my germs.

A blue sheet of something antiseptic looking was put over my blanket and what looked like blue dish towels were draped over the area bordering the cutting space.

I don't know how long we waited for the surgeon but eventually he arrived and proceeded to keep up a running conversation while he worked on me.   Asking me about what state I was from and when I answered Wisconsin he started talking about the areas the he was familiar with.  I'm sure it was to keep my wide awake mind off the fact that I was being sliced open and a once useful leftover from chemotherapy was being pulled and pried out of me.

The pain killer was the same one dentists use - lidocaine.   And it reminded me of a tooth extraction - one of the big ones.

The basic method was to pull the catheter - a long plastic looking hose that went into a deep vein.  I asked them and they said they were not going to do anything like suture the vein.  The vein would heal itself.   They just basically yank on it until it comes out.

That old double barreled port was a bit of a problem to get out.  It had a lot of scar tissue around it and I could feel it being tugged, pulled and what felt like pried off my pectoral muscle.

But it finally came out and the doctor held it where I could see it.  Viola!